Of Stalkers and Stubbed Toes
by TheGingerAvenger
Summary: In which the Grimms notice an odd ginger who claims to be a "Reader", and an awful lot of fangirling ensues. A silly little oneshot. #sg10thanniverse #sgselfieweek


**This was written quickly in the few moments of downtime I had while visiting family, and it wasn't given the same amount of thought and proof-reading that I usually do, so it's not the best quality** **. It's also a silly oneshot that's really just me fangirling over everyone, but I hope you like it anyway! If you spot any errors, let me know!**

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They never noticed her before. Though when Sabrina thought about it, she had always been there. Tucked away in the background. Never saying anything. Just watching. It was a bit creepy actually.

It wasn't until she stubbed her toe on the side of the couch and released a long string of expletives that were certainly not acceptable for a children's book that they finally saw her.

The entire Grimm family stared at the girl whose foul mouth had interrupted their dinner, watching in varying degrees of shock and alarm as she hopped up and down on one leg and cradled her wounded foot in her hand. After a few moments of muttering angrily under her breath, the curly haired ginger noticed that everyone was staring at her and froze.

She grinned sheepishly at them, a blush staining her cheeks a dark red, and wiggled the fingers of one hand in a wave. "Uh, hello?" She gestured towards the table, carefully setting her foot back on the ground. "You should go back to eating your supper and just . . .pretend you never saw me."

"Who are you?" Sabrina demanded, her muscles tensing in wariness. She was sure they had gotten rid of all the Scarlet Hand members, but it was possible they could have missed a few. Though, from looking at her, Sabrina couldn't think of any Everafter this girl could be.

"Oh, I'm just one of the readers," the girl said, waving her hand dismissively. "There're a ton of us." A frown crossed her face. "Though you usually don't notice us, which I guess means I've done something wrong."

"Readers?" Veronica's face twisted in confusion.

"There are more of you?" Henry looked a little perturbed, shifting in his seat to sweep his gaze around the room, as if expecting more random people to appear from behind the stacks of books. The fact that the room was empty didn't seem to fill him with much relief.

"Well, readers are. . ." The girl paused, her nose scrunched up in thought as she tried to figure out the best way to explain. "We kind of . . .uh. . .follow along and watch what happens to you guys."

"So, essentially, you're a stalker," Pinocchio said.

The girl frowned at him. "That's not really what I was going for, but I guess that's one way of putting it."

"Well that's not creepy at all," Sabrina deadpanned. The thought of people watching everything she's ever done made her skin crawl and her brain to conjure up all the times she's made mistakes or done something embarrassing.

Daphne leaned over to her, subtly nabbing some of the food off her sister's plate, and whispered, "What's a stalker?"

"Someone who follows people around and watches what they do," Sabrina answered.

Daphne's face twisted up, lips curling in a grimace. "That does sound creepy."

"Yeah." The girl nodded and scratched her head. "It sounded a lot better in my head than it did out loud."

Jake's face twisted up in worry before he spoke, slow and hesitant. "You guys don't watch _everything_ , do you?"

"Oh no no no, just the more important parts of what happens to the Grimms." The girl assured him, her brow furrowing. "But we're not really stalkers. You see, to us, the readers, you guys are characters in a book."

Her words didn't assure Jake, or anyone at the table. If anything, it made them look even more disturbed. Except for Daphne, whose face lit up at the thought of being a character in a book.

"We're in a book?" Henry snorted and stabbed at his food. "I'd like to have a few words with whoever's writing these books then."

Mr. Canis grunted in agreement.

"Wait . . ." Daphne's face scrunched up in thought. "So, when we were inside the Book of Everafter, we were inside of a book that was inside of a book?"

Puck moaned and buried his head in his hands. "You're making my brain hurt, Marshmallow."

Red frowned and reached over the table to hesitantly pat the fairy on the head.

Pinocchio glanced at him, lip curled as if Puck were some disgusting animal. "It's really not that complicated."

"It's Puck," Sabrina said, rolling her eyes. "Everything's complicated to him."

Puck lifted his hand to glare at the Sabrina, sticking his tongue out at her for good measure. "What's the name of these so called 'books'?" He asked.

"The Sisters Grimm," the girl replied.

An affronted look crossed the fairy's face and he pointed towards Sabrina and Daphne. "What? It's about these losers?"

"Yeah, they're the main characters."

"Who would want to write a book about what happens to them?" Puck drawled, forcing the words past a mouthful of Granny's famous fried squid tentacles. He leaned back in his chair and puffed his chest out. "If you want to be entertained, then you should read about what happens to me, the Trickster King!"

"Most of the stuff that happens to you happens to us, barf brain," Sabrina said, glaring at the boy and smacking his hand away when he tried to steal some of the more normal food off her plate.

"Wait wait wait." Jake held up his hands, an almost panicked look breaking the shocked one that had covered his face for the past few minutes. "So, if we're in a book, does that mean we're not real?" His voice rose to a higher pitch. "Am I only saying this 'cause someone's writing it?"

"You know, you guys should just . . . go about doing what you were doing and . . .pretend I'm not here and none of this happened." The girl turned around as if about to head out the door before she spun on her heels to face the family again. She bit her lip, indecision crossing her face, before exclaiming, "I just have a few things I've always wanted to say to you guys and since you already know that I'm here I don't see that it would be such a big problem or anything but. . ."

She took a few steps closer to Sabrina. "I'm not going to hug you or anything 'cause I'm pretty sure you could kill me without even breaking a sweat, but you are so freaking awesome and wonderful and brave and strong and I love you and you should never listen to anyone who thinks you should magically get over what you've been through 'cause you've gone through some horrible stuff and-" The girl seemed to realize that she was rambling and slammed her mouth closed before nodding her head at the girl.

Sabrina sat frozen in her seat, her eyes wide and cheeks slowly reddening under the onslaught of gushing praise from this stranger. "Uh. . ." she stuttered. She didn't really know what to say, if she should thank this stranger or not, though she was still disturbed and a bit angry that this person seemed to know so much about her and her family.

The girl, however, didn't wait for Sabrina to say anything else. Her gaze turned to Puck, her nose crinkling a little as she pointed at him. "I'm not going to hug you because you really do smell horrible. But I love all of the pranks that you come up with. Those take some serious brains"

Puck puffed up with pride, casting a smug look at Sabrina. "I like this peasant. She has good taste."

"But," the girl continued. "You might want to lay off the pranks a bit before you end up doing something you'll regret. And you might want to learn how to express and deal with your emotions other than pranking people. Oh and Oberon was verbally abusive, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. And don't believe anything he may have said. You're the bomb dot com."

Puck kinda of deflated, pointedly ignoring the smug look Sabrina was now sending him, as the girl spun to Daphne.

"You can hug me!" Daphne shouted, jumping up from her chair and ignoring the alarmed look Sabrina sent her.

The two hugged and when they parted the girl said, "Keep being bubbly and cheerful and happy and awesome with all the magic stuff, but lay off on your sister, okay? She's been through a lot, she lost her childhood, and she's allowed to decide what she wants to do. Just because it doesn't coincide with what you want, or with the family business, doesn't mean it's wrong."

The girl turned, flung herself at Red and wrapped her in a hug. "I love you you strong, brave child. It was so awesome how you became possessed by the wolf so Mr. Canis wouldn't have to!"

She released a rather shocked looking Red and turned to Pinocchio. The girl opened her mouth before closing it abruptly. Her brow furrowed in thought as an awkward silence grew. After a while, she coughed nervously and hesitantly patted the boy on the head. "Riight," she said and spun around to look at Mr. Canis.

Pinocchio frowned when she turned away from him, his expression hovering somewhere between relieved and offended.

Before Mr. Canis could blink, the girl had wrapped him in a hug. "You're awesome even if I thought you were a bit creepy the first time you were introduced."

She turned to Granny and wrapped her in a hug. "I love you and your sluethiness and lay off on the weird food every now and then. Except for the cookies. Keep it up with the cookies."

The girl spun around to Jake, who looked like he was trying to find something in his many pockets that would make the girl go away. "Basil's death wasn't your fault. Briar's death wasn't your fault. Please stop blaming yourself. And let go of the guilt. I like your coat by the way."

"HANK!" The girl shouted, causing the older man to jump in surprise. "I like you. I know a lot of people think you're mean and cranky, but I think that's only because you woke up to realize you'd been asleep for two years and you're kids have been living a horrible life and you were in shock and you found out they were in danger and exactly where you had been trying so hard to keep them out of. So yeah, but I can't imagine you being a harsh dude if you've grown up with Jake."

What can only be described as the sound of a dying whale erupted from her throat when she threw herself at Veronica. Sabrina assumed the noise was supposed to show excitement.

When she finally released Veronica, the girl started to back up towards the couch before pausing and once again turning to Puck and Sabrina. "One last thing. I love you guys. Please continue to tease each other and call each other weird and yet child-friendly insults and be a team and lean on each other. But in a few years you might want to try to avoid anything that seems . . .epilogue-y. Trust me, you'll thank me later."

Sabrina glanced over at Puck before quickly looking down at her hands, a blush warming her cheeks. When she was sure all traces of the blush where gone, she looked up again but the girl had disappeared.

"Soo," Jake said, breaking the long moment of silence that had descended on the family. "Is anyone going to be able to sleep tonight? 'Cause I know I'm not."

"I can't decide if I should feel honored or disturbed," Veronica muttered.

"Both," Henry said. He looked like he was still trying to decide if this was all some strange dream. "Definitely both."

"Seriously though." Puck crossed his arms petulantly over his chest, sinking down lower in his hair. "Who would write a book about you peasants?"

"Probably some weird old guy with way too much time on his hands," Pinocchio grumbled. He seemed to have decided on being offended that he hadn't received any praise from the stranger. "Though any stories written about this family could never be classified as good literature."

"Hey!" Daphne sat up straighter in her seat and shot Pinocchio an angry look. "This family is much-o cool-o!" A grin replaced the angry scowl when she turned to Sabrina. "Maybe they'll make a movie out it! How gravy would that be?"

Veronica shook her head. "It would be much better if they did it as a TV show." She shrugged when everyone glanced at her. "There would be more time to dedicate to backstories and character development."

"There are more of them," Mr. Canis said slowly, as if he still hadn't let that thought go, his gaze drifting around the room. It was one of the few times Sabrina had seen the old man look so freaked out.

"Let's not think of these things right now," Granny quickly interrupted. "Why don't we finish out meal and go about things as normal?"

A long moment of silence stretched on before the family slowly began to eat again. Their movements were awkward and almost shy as each of them were all too aware of the invisible 'readers' watching their every move.


End file.
